How Can Our Small Clinic Balance Leave Requests Without Encouraging Fake Excuses?

Hello all,

Mine is a start-up clinic with fewer than 10 employees. We have provided 1 week off, but employees are not happy with that; they need a casual leave monthly. Our management denied this request because, as a clinic with more than 10 employees, it is difficult to operate when everyone takes leave. Consequently, employees have resorted to providing fake medical reasons and requesting leaves for 4-5 days at a stretch, which the management cannot easily reject as they are aware that these reasons are fake.

However, this situation is causing issues for genuinely needy employees who require leave. It is a challenge when those with fake reasons are taking advantage of the system. I hope the experts here can understand my issue and provide solutions.

Please let me know how we can address this matter effectively. Thank you.

Dear Padmaja, you have raised a separate post on the eligibility of the employees for paid leave and closed holidays. I have replied to that query. You may follow the provisions of the law and just stop there. If the employees do not have sufficient leave balance and yet do not report for duty, whether for medical reasons or otherwise, then let them forfeit their pay.

Employees need to be facilitators of business growth. They cannot become obstacles. The business owner has to run the business overcoming all types of obstacles.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Compliance with the Shops and Establishments Act

If your clinic is covered under the Shops and Establishments Act of the state, you must provide earned leave and medical leave as per the Act, unless otherwise exempted for such a startup. One day off in a week is as per the Shops and Establishments Act.

Every establishment shall remain closed for one day in a week on the notified day. If the establishment is exempted from the weekly closed day, employees must be given one day off on a rotation basis.

Dear friends,

So far as I understand by browsing through the provisions of the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961, Section 3(1)(d) of the Act completely exempts establishments for the treatment or care of the sick, infirm, or the mentally unfit from the application of the Act. If the poster's so-called clinic falls within that category of such exempted establishment, there is no statutory need to follow the leave provisions of the KNS&CE Act, 1961.

However, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 applies to such establishments. In fact, the Government of Karnataka has actually brought the employment in hospitals, maternity homes, nursing homes, clinics, and de-addiction centers under the schedule of the MW Act, 1948, and fixed minimum rates of wages. Section 13(1)(b) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 provides for a day of rest in every period of seven days and payment of remuneration thereof, and Section 13(1)(c) provides for payment for work on such a day of rest at a rate not less than the overtime rate.

I have no idea about any other special labor law covering the hospital industry in the State. Therefore, it can be safely concluded that employees of the clinic are statutorily entitled to one day of weekly off only. If they are granted any other leave by way of convention, the availing of such leave is subject to the conditions, if any prescribed therein.

Generally, no leave can be claimed by an employee as a matter of right. It equally holds good that it cannot be denied by the employer as a matter of discretion also. Therefore, it is a matter of situational management which hinges on the genuineness of the claim and the flexibility of its sanction as well as the reasonableness of its rejection. Here, the staffing pattern of such an establishment functioning 24X7 matters much. If there is understaffing, certainly it would create practical problems for employees despite the nature of their jobs needing an appropriate work-life balance, and leave both in periodicity and at times of need is a crucial factor in this aspect of paid employment.

Therefore, it is for the poster's management to decide accordingly for only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.